Table EIR 3. Hazardous waste incident, Youngstown train derailment (Herndon 

 and Teaf 1978) . 



Personal damage: Eight deaths and more than 100 injuries. Also, more than 

 3,700 persons had to be evacuated from within a 10-mile radius of the 



spill . 



Environmental damage: Minor. On 24 March and 26 June 1978, representatives 

 from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Region IV visited the 

 derailment site and determined that the clean-up operations were satis- 

 factory, the chlorine neutralization pits were successfully covered and 

 that the area was "environmentally secure." 



Economic damage: Uncalculated, but would include extensive costs to local, 

 state and federal groups involved in the rescue, evacuation and treat- 

 ment of injured persons, as well as costs for teams necessary to safely 

 treat and clean up potentially hazardous wastes from the wreck. 



Cause of problem: The derailment of a train, including a tank car which 

 carried chlorine . 



Type and quantity of hazardous waste: A ruptured railroad tank car carrying 

 several thousand gallons of liquid chlorine. 



Date of incident: 26 February 1978. 



Location: Youngstown, Bay County. 



Remedial action: Evacuation was carried out within a 10 to 12 mi radius of 

 the wreck site, and the chlorine-containing tanker car was transported 

 on foam to a nearby pit dug specifically for the purpose. The chlorine was 

 carefully bled into the pit along with a large volume of caustic soda 

 and water. The tank car was then filled with water to stabilize the resi- 

 dual chlorine. Existing drinking water wells were more than 0.5 mi away, 

 but monitoring of well water and surface water continued in order to detect 

 possible future contamination. EPA representatives set January 1979 

 as the time after which wells safely could be drilled in the area. 



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